OFFLINE

British riots spread on third night of violence
Third night of clashes in London

LONDON, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Riots spread to new areas of London on Monday while looting also erupted the city of Birmingham as Britain's worst unrest in decades escalated in a third night of violence.

In Hackney, a multi-ethnic area in east London close to the site of next year's Olympic Games, hooded youths set fire to rubbish bins and pushed them down a street towards police, while hurling bottles and bricks.

Many laughed as they ran back when police charged them. Others shouted into their cellphones telling their friends to join in.

The disturbances started late on Saturday in London's northern Tottenham district when a peaceful protest over the police's shooting of a suspect turned violent.

On Monday, the violence had spread to the south of the city, including the areas of Peckham, Croydon and Lewisham.

Attackers also smashed shops and looted property in the central England city of Birmingham, police said, in the first sign of the riots spreading beyond the capital.

In Hackney, with the street thick with smoke, looters smashed their way into a local shop, stealing whisky and beer. One had even grabbed a packet of cornflakes. Another man ran away laughing while carrying four bottles of whisky.

"I am from South Africa and it reminds me of the riots there, except the police here are not so rough," said one middle-aged local resident, who declined to give his name.

"But the kids don't have any respect for the police or for property. It's sad for the people who live round here."

In Peckam, flames leapt into the air from a torched building, while rubble was strewn across the street. People walked in and out of shops looting.

Police had arrested 215 people, according to Home Secretary Theresa May, who cut short her holiday because of the riots.

"The violence we've seen, the looting we've seen, the thuggery we've seen, this is sheer criminality ... these people will be brought to justice, they will be made to face the consequences of their actions," she said.

"SENSELESS"

But despite a heavy police presence, they appeared unable to contain the violence as looters coordinated through mobile phones and Twitter to try to keep one step ahead of them.

In Hackney, youths in brown hoods posed for pictures in front of a burning car on a street corner. Others swarmed around a skip full of bricks and gathered them up.

"I don't know why they are doing this," said a middled-aged woman who lived nearby. "It's senseless ... they are just cacking on their own doorstep."

The BBC said the Hackney clashes broke out after police stopped and searched a man.

British government officials branded rioters as opportunistic criminals and said the violence would not affect preparations for next summer's Olympic Games.

Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Kavanagh said the force was putting more officers on the streets in Hackney and other areas on Monday night.

"Let me make it clear that people who are using current events as an excuse or cover to break the law, steal, attack police officers and cause fear to Londoners will not be tolerated by the vast majority of Londoners and us," he said.

BARRICADES

A small group of people said they had barricaded themselves inside the 110-year-old Hackney Empire theatre to escape the violence.

"We are stuck inside," said one person, who did not give her name, in a telephone conversation with Reuters.

"We don't want to be near the windows. They seem to be targeting shops at the moment. It's very scary."

"We are in the back of the building, staying away from the front. We have barricaded the doors and put chains on the doors."

Youths appeared to have used a free message service on Blackberry mobile phones to coordinate attacks on shops and police.

Research In Motion , the Canadian manufacturer of Blackberry smartphones, said it would work with British authorities, but gave no details on what information, if any, it would give the police.

"We feel for those impacted by this weekend's riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can," RIM spokesman Patrick Spence said in a statement.

Some have branded the disturbances as a cry for help from impoverished areas reeling from the government's harsh austerity cuts to tackle a big budget deficit, with youth services and other facilities cut back sharply.

"Tottenham is a deprived area. Unemployment is very, very high ... they are frustrated," said Uzodinma Wigwe, 49, who was made redundant from his job as a cleaner recently.

Officials said there was no excuse.

"It was needless, opportunistic theft and violence, nothing more, nothing less. It is completely unacceptable," said Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/08/britain-riot-idUSL6E7J80H020110808

Is this hitting the news much over on the other side of the atlantic, or is the news still all about the S&P downgrade?

OFFLINE

We've heard about it here too. I really have no idea what they're so mad about. I think the article is correct about his just being an excuse to express anger. Poverty stricken areas or maybe they just have bad attitudes. Similar things happen here too with people like that, but maybe not quite as bad. I suspect that the only reason some Americans are so passionate about gay rights or the environment is because they're either looking for an obsession to take up their time or they're looking for reasons to express their emotions.

OFFLINE

you ever seen a near future science fiction flick, where they show a bunch of news clips on the television to illustrate just how much the world has gone to **** in the time since the present? well the more and more i've been watching the real news much in that same regard. just go back 10 years, and the state of the world we see now, would seem just as far-fetched and unlikely as when you see fake news broadcasts in movies.

one thing that comes to mind though, is a thing that glenn beck said on his old program a few months back. he said that this global unrest would start in the middle east and spread like a cancer, before spreading to europe, and then finally america. i dunno if that's true or not, but it does seem the world is at a turning point, and i fear the age of western supremacy is coming to an end.

OFFLINE

Is all OK, David Cameron is starting to get tough on the rioters:

http://twitpic.com/63bixl

:-P

OFFLINE

Originally Posted by Dødherre Mørktre:

one thing that comes to mind though, is a thing that glenn beck said on his old program a few months back. he said that this global unrest would start in the middle east and spread like a cancer, before spreading to europe, and then finally america. i dunno if that's true or not, but it does seem the world is at a turning point, and i fear the age of western supremacy is coming to an end.

Well, the big difference there is that the Egyptians were fighting for freedom of expression, the British are fighting for free plasma TVs and iPods... :-P

Seriously tho, whatever started the rioting, most of it now is opportunist, with people out looting, burning stuff and causing havoc because they can get away with it.

Then again, is a good way to weed out some of the dumber criminals as well: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/41419/twitter-tottenham-riot-thief-picture

OFFLINE

OFFLINE

well, miles, it looks as if the british left is already arguing my point for me.

from the guardian:



Since the coalition came to power just over a year ago, the country has seen multiple student protests, occupations of dozens of universities, several strikes, a half-a-million-strong trade union march and now unrest on the streets of the capital (preceded by clashes with Bristol police in Stokes Croft earlier in the year). Each of these events was sparked by a different cause, yet all take place against a backdrop of brutal cuts and enforced austerity measures. The government knows very well that it is taking a ****, and that its policies run the risk of sparking mass unrest on a scale we haven't seen since the early 1980s. With people taking to the streets of Tottenham, Edmonton, Brixton and elsewhere over the past few nights, we could be about to see the government enter a sustained and serious losing streak.

The policies of the past year may have clarified the division between the entitled and the dispossessed in extreme terms, but the context for social unrest cuts much deeper. The fatal shooting of Mark Duggan last Thursday, where it appears, contrary to initial accounts, that only police bullets were fired, is another tragic event in a longer history of the Metropolitan police's treatment of ordinary Londoners, especially those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, and the singling out of specific areas and individuals for monitoring, stop and search and daily harassment.

Combine understandable suspicion of and resentment towards the police based on experience and memory with high poverty and large unemployment and the reasons why people are taking to the streets become clear.

Those condemning the events of the past couple of nights in north London and elsewhere would do well to take a step back and consider the bigger picture: a country in which the richest 10% are now 100 times better off than the poorest, where consumerism predicated on personal debt has been pushed for years as the solution to a faltering economy, and where, according to the OECD, social mobility is worse than any other developed country.

As Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett point out in The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone, phenomena usually described as "social problems" (crime, ill-health, imprisonment rates, mental illness) are far more common in unequal societies than ones with better economic distribution and less gap between the richest and the poorest. Decades of individualism, competition and state-encouraged selfishness – combined with a systematic crushing of unions and the ever-increasing criminalisation of dissent – have made Britain one of the most unequal countries in the developed world.

Images of burning buildings, cars aflame and stripped-out shops may provide spectacular fodder for a restless media, ever hungry for new stories and fresh groups to demonise, but we will understand nothing of these events if we ignore the history and the context in which they occur.






see miles? these people aren't rioters or looters, they're just freedom fighters. it's the inequalities in the system that are the problem. it's the greedy capitalists only worried about themselves, in a system that "oppresses" them, so they're just trying to lift off those shackles, just like the egyptians, and the libya, and the tunisians, and the syrians. this is the world of moral equivalency.

you know miles, this is really no different than the "flash mob robs" i posted a thread on here in america. remember that? the only difference is the scale and intensity. they're even using the social networking sites to coordinate at certain times and locations. sort of similar to all the anarchist riots at G8 meetings. in fact, i'd be willing to bet that hundreds of these guys who fly all over the world to spark up trouble, have flown into this new mecca of thievery and destruction. we created this generation with a sense of entitlement.

and the tactics they're using are quite similar to those employed by the (liberal backed) palestinians in challenging israel's border. just moving en masse, appearing and (sometimes) disappearing before anyone has time to brace themselves. for christ sake, miles, they've broken into a michigan star restaurant, and stripped the jewelry from the guests' fingers and hands. they're robbing people of their clothes in the middle of the street. they're just liberating their share of the spoils. just like during katrina, where sneakers and flat screens were taken, just to survive.

and can you even imagine what would happen if the u.s. government actually gathered up the spine to actually cut (in real cuts now) it's bloated self and reform our entitlement system? the same exact thing, also similar to the sit in up in wisconsin. seeing a theme here at all?

the arab marchers may seem to be in a struggle for different things, but in the simplest of matters, they share one thing with the left. for whatever reason, the status quo must go. it's all just unrest, and dissatisfaction with the current global order. this is the new socialist west.

OFFLINE

OFFLINE

Originally Posted by Dødherre Mørktre:

see miles? these people aren't rioters or looters, they're just freedom fighters. it's the inequalities in the system that are the problem. it's the greedy capitalists only worried about themselves, in a system that "oppresses" them, so they're just trying to lift off those shackles, just like the egyptians, and the libya, and the tunisians, and the syrians. this is the world of moral equivalency.

Heh, well, if they're freedom fighters trying to lift off the shackles, how come instead of protesting outside government buildings or large corporations they're burning down furniture shops or coming out of sports stores with bags of stuff? The only "liberating" they're doing is the liberation of goods from their owners without paying for them :-P


  
Is nice the way the girl at the end actually decides to take time to stop and try on the shoes before running off with them...

Then you have these good samaritans...

OFFLINE

it's a total lack of respect for the rules of the system and common decency. again, we raised this generation.

OFFLINE

Originally Posted by Dødherre Mørktre:
it's a total lack of respect for the rules of the system and common decency. again, we raised this generation.

I didn't.... ;-P

OFFLINE

This is just getting out of hand now.....

OFFLINE

With riots breaking out across the U.K., some are wondering if the unrest could spread to America. Already in the past few months, youth mobs have wreaked havoc in Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Cleveland.

Now that youth mobs in Philadelphia have led to new government action, questions remain: why is this happening, and what is the likelihood of such activity amongst American youth?

The city of Philadelphia has now begun a coordinated response to flash mobs and teen violence that has recently plagued the city and terrorized residential areas.

A Philadelphia man was assaulted by a group of about 30 who were believed to have gotten together through Twitter, according to the Associated Press. On June 23 a few dozen young people looted several hundred dollars worth of merchandise in the Philadelphia suburb of Upper Darby, Pa.

And Philadelphia is not alone: this weekend, Milwaukee shuddered as a mob stormed the fairgrounds at the Wisconsin state fair. And on July 4 in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, a group of 1,000 youths organized through social networking sites to fight and disrupt an event.

The motive and circumstances surrounding the attacks that have resulted in numerous arrests around the country are being investigated -- and law enforcement officials in at least one city are looking into a possible racial component to the crimes.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, who recently imposed a stricter curfew in response to the city's latest attack, addressed black youths directly from the pulpit of his church on Sunday, reportedly saying, “You have damaged your own race.”

"If you want …anybody else to respect you and not be afraid when they see you walking down the street, then leave the innocent people who are walking down the street minding their own damn business. Leave them alone," Nutter told a mostly black congregation at Mount Carmel Baptist Church in West Philadelphia, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.  

Nutter, the city's third black mayor, spoke after a mob attack July 29 in downtown Philadelphia during which 20 to 30 black youths allegedly beat and robbed innocent bystanders, according to law enforcement. Several people were injured, including one man who was reportedly hospitalized for a fractured skull, and police arrested four people.

The incident happened the same day police said a group of all-black teens beat a man on a street in Philadelphia's Old City section --  which was caught on surveillance video obtained by Fox affiliate WTXF-TV. Three juveniles were arrested Wednesday in connection to the attack

Similar attacks are also being investigated in cities likes Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, Washington, D.C., and Milwaukee, where 30 people were arrested after alleged mob attacks erupted at the Wisconsin State Fair on Aug. 4. At least 18 people were injured in or around the grounds, including seven police officers, authorities said.

Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn called the attacks "reprehensible," and some fairgoers, including Norb Roffers, said it appeared bystanders were targeted because of their race.

"It looked like they were just going after white guys, white people," Roffers told Wisconsin’s Newsradio 620.

But while some witness accounts suggest the attacks are race-based, law enforcement officials say they have no evidence to prove it.

Authorities in Wisconsin, meanwhile, say they are investigating 11 new allegations of race-based assaults near the state fairgrounds in which the alleged perpetrators were all African-American and the victims were either white or Hispanic.

West Allis Police Chief Mike Jungbluth said the victims, who ranged in age from “young all the way up to adults,” suffered broken bones in the alleged attacks.

“They were targeting anyone who was white or appeared to look white … We are actively looking at violations of hate crime statues in Wisconsin,” Jungbluth told FoxNews.com, adding that the alleged attacks were “an outrageous occurrence at an event that is truly designed to be about the family.”

OFFLINE

OFFLINE

Hmm, I dunno, that guy should stop holding back and just tell us what he really thinks.... :-P